Savage on Autism

[Dancing David]

Asperger's DSM IV

DSM IV-R for Asperger’s Syndrome

For a diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome, the following criteria met be met:

1.Student must have impairment in social interaction, as manifested by at least two of the following (possible examples with each):

Marked impairments in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body posture, and gestures to regulate social interaction
He makes limited eye contact with the person in which he is speaking.
Her facial expressions do not change to demonstrate points.
Failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level
Friends are much younger than his actual age.
Does not have a large group of peer friends.
A lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interest or achievements with other people
Does not point out objects that would be of interest to other people.
She does not congratulate the winner of a game.
Lack of social or emotional reciprocity
He interrupts others talking in a social setting.
She does not understand how to appropriately engage in small talk.

2.Student must have restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests and activities, as manifested by at least one of the following:

Encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal either in intensity or focus
Student talks continuously about a topic of interest, such as Pokemon. He may be able to tell you specific details about every character.
Parents learn more about World War II battles than they ever cared to know from their daughter.
Apparently inflexible adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines or rituals
Student refuses to go to an assembly at school because it is not part of a normal day.
School began on a two hour delay and she will not do math at 10:30 because math is done at 8:45 .
Stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms
Student often engages in hand or finger flapping when frustrated or excited.
Student rocks in seat during times of frustration.
Persistent preoccupation with parts of objects
Student plays with parts of toys instead of how the toy was intended.
Student would rather take things apart than use the whole object.

3. The disturbance causes clinically significant impairments in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
4. There is no clinically significant general delay in language (researchers are debating this topic presently.)
5. There is no clinically significant delay in cognitive development or in the development of age-appropriate self help skills, adaptive behavior (other than in social interaction) and curiosity about the environment in childhood.
6. Criteria are not met for another specific Pervasive Developmental Disorder or Schizophrenia.

So please note
ALL SIX CTRITERIA MUST BE MET

And those are the criteria for someone who knows what they are doing.
You MUST have
1. two for this category
2. 2. one of this category
3.-6. Must be met

Now please note that when you asses the presence of something like
“Lack of social or emotional reciprocity “

This does not mean that they frequently interrupt conversation, it means that they will all the time, that they will not follow the rules for game (they may just walk away from the plate in baseball.) And that this pattern of ‘Lack of social or emotional reciprocity’ crosses almost all social setting and with almost all people: almost all the time.
When it says “rocking when frustrated” it means like really rocking and over little things that a child would normally not become frustrated with.
When it says “preoccupation with interest” : “Hello, I am sad because my grandmother just died.”, “Did you know that Babe Ruth was…” . They are really preoccupied. “The house is burning down”, “A Pokemon that evolves from Mankee…”
That is where layman misunderstand the criteria.

When it says ‘marked’ it means ‘frequently’ like 80% of the time. When it says ‘significant and severe’, it means beyond the norm of behavior. Way beyond the norm of behavior.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Are you concerned that depression is a spectrum? What about emphysema or asthma? Perhaps cancers(yes, some cancers are a spectrum)?

Diseases/conditions are not always black and white.

I appreciate virtually all conditions have a degrees of severity. However, most physical conditions have reasonably objective tests. E.g., lung function (spirometry) for COPD and asthma, biopsy for cancer, etc.

The problem I see with the diagnoses of mild forms of metal illnesses/conditions is the criteria used for them are often vague and subjective. These tests are probably fine for the more extreme cases, but I’d imagine their specificity drops off very rapidly as the deviations from the mean get smaller.

Unfortunately, being labelled as having a particular condition can have long-term negative life-changing consequences, from being put on medication with side-effects to using the diagnosis as an excuse not to try.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Student would rather take things apart than use the whole object.

That's a requirement to be an engineer.

 

[Billdave2]

Asperger's DSM IV

DSM IV-R for Asperger’s Syndrome


So please note
ALL SIX CTRITERIA MUST BE MET

And those are the criteria for someone who knows what they are doing.
You MUST have
1. two for this category
2. 2. one of this category
3.-6. Must be met

Now please note that when you asses the presence of something like
“Lack of social or emotional reciprocity “

This does not mean that they frequently interrupt conversation, it means that they will all the time, that they will not follow the rules for game (they may just walk away from the plate in baseball.) And that this pattern of ‘Lack of social or emotional reciprocity’ crosses almost all social setting and with almost all people: almost all the time.
When it says “rocking when frustrated” it means like really rocking and over little things that a child would normally not become frustrated with.
When it says “preoccupation with interest” : “Hello, I am sad because my grandmother just died.”, “Did you know that Babe Ruth was…” . They are really preoccupied. “The house is burning down”, “A Pokemon that evolves from Mankee…”
That is where layman misunderstand the criteria.

When it says ‘marked’ it means ‘frequently’ like 80% of the time. When it says ‘significant and severe’, it means beyond the norm of behavior. Way beyond the norm of behavior.

This is exactly what I was talking about in my son's case. The intial diagnosis came from the daycare. They worried because he didn't interact with the other kids like they felt was "normal". He also did not always want to follow there schedule and they saw that as his being rigid (actually it is more a sign that they are rigid). He also loved trains (still does) and would take a train and line other toys, like blocks or cars behind it and pretend they were boxcars. They saw this as preoccupation and using toys other than there intended use (even though he would also play blocks and with cars the way they were intended to if he felt like it). He also exhibited some hand flapping when running (not all the time) which is not necessarily out of the ordinary for a three year old. However, the questionaire they filled out to submit to the state listed all criteria in your post, which they listed as he "always" did, including the things he never did like rocking, lack of eye conduct and several others. The developmental pediatrician and the doctors my wife work with all also said that simply meeting the minimum requirements listed is also not a full diagnosis, it is simply the minimum and further testing must be done. Some children that meet the minimum will still not be diagnoised with Asperger's. They will probably be diagnosed as "somewhere on the very low end of the autism scale". It is dangerous to let unqualified people asses things like this.

 

[luchog]

it's easy for an outside observer to see it as simply bad behavior on the part of a normal person who could do better, not a symptom of a condition that makes doing better impossible.

NOT impossible; merely difficult. It is certainly possible for Asperger's Syndrome individuals to improve their social skills and functionality. It frequently takes a lot of hard work to learn how do things that other people manage automatically, and in many cases cannot be done perfectly; but it can be done.

 

[luchog]

you are pretty ignorant if you think chronic fatigue syndrome is laziness.

Speaking as someone who has been diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome by two seperate practitioners, I think it's crap. No one actually knows WTF it's even supposed to be. So far, it's a sort of catch-all, half-assed diagnosis of exclusion, encompassing a vague and variable constellation of symptoms which may or may not be related, and for which a doctor is either unable to determine a cause, or uninterested in making the effort to determine a cause. All the research into a cause for CFS has turned up squat, aside from some nebulous assumption that there may be multiple causes and contributing factors. Little different from an "idiopathic" diagnosis. All it means is that "We have no bloody clue".

 

[Nogbad]

I think Maddox put it best:

[qimg]http://image.grenme.com/thread/parenting.png[/qimg]


_[/joke]

A typical evening in the Savage household by the sounds of his comments.

I was a little surprised to see so many comments on here that seemed to lack understanding of what autistic spectrum disorders are. Asperger's has been around as a diagnosis since the 1930s. I really don't know what the level of diagnosis is in the US but my daughter was in a High School of about a 1,000 kids and there were only about three kids diagnosed with Autism that I was aware of. Indeed, the school wasn't really all that up on the condition and relied heavily on the local hospital child psychologist for help. The school were not that brilliant to be honest but the medical assistance has been first rate (one up for the NHS).

My daughter is high functioning and can put the relentless focus to good use on her art projects and as long as she is reminded to eat, sleep and take her colitis meds. has got a fair hunk of life relatively sorted now. It was not easy when she in her early teens because kids home in on the different with a casual viciousness that is quite disturbing and she didn't take to being a victim. She tended to prefer the Dilbert style "fist of death" - something that the school struggled with (easier to remove her than tackle bullying). By the time she was in the final year at school people had matured and she had a circle of friends that not only accepted her but genuinely seemed quite fond of her eccentricities.

Savage's comments irritated me last night when I was a bit tired but on reflection he is just another snake oil salesmen pitching his wares trying to earn a buck. It is doubtful he drinks his own medicine - knowing full well it is useless pish.

 

[luchog]

That's a requirement to be an engineer.

A disproportionate number of individuals purusing engineering and computer sciences are Asperger's. Probably due primarily to their preference for consistent, logical systems. And why LEGO is one of their most popular toys.

 

[technoextreme]

That's a requirement to be an engineer.

I wouldn't put it past the vast majority of good scientists and engineers to have some sort of mental disorder. I wouldn't necessarily say it's anything related to autism but considering the fact that a large amount of people either my parents or myself know act almost exactly the same way in some regards it's rather quite creepy.

 

[GreNME]

You will note I said most parents are not like this, but there are more than a few who are.

I didn't mean to single you out with that comment. I more meant to use your mentioning how the conversation can get muddy as a segue. My apologies.

A typical evening in the Savage household by the sounds of his comments.

You mean all parents aren't obligated to do that? Boy, am I lucky I'm not a dad! (I keed, I keed... well, except the not-being-a-dad part)

Savages comments irritated me last night when I was a bit tired but on reflection he is just another snake oil salesmen pitching his wares trying to earn a buck. It is doubtful he drinks his own medicine - knowing full well it is useless pish.

I suspect that's true about most of these radio commentators, regardless of their social or political persuasions.

 

[XBoxWarrior]

I admit.......I didn't read all the non-sense.....

But m savage=m weiner.....he's just a dude with a show.

selling the schlop to the morons.

Get over it.....rw idiots make great livings this way in the US.

Rush gets $400,000

Hannity gets $120,000
\
It's a freakin joke.

 

[technoextreme]

Get over it.....rw idiots make great livings this way in the US.

The problem is that the idiots persuade idiots do things that will cause harm. How many kids have died because their parents though vaccines were bad....

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The idea that parents and teachers use psychiatric diagnoses as legal fictions so they can invoke some section of school policy isn't a myth. I've seen the paperwork. It happens.

In a small percentage of cases, of course. But as a general reason so many kids have ADHD diagnoses and are prescribed meds, it is not true.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

What is the range of normal behaviour for children?

Who decides what's normal?

Typically, the ability to function is the cutoff for 'abnormal enough to be treated'. If your behavior interferes with your ability to perform the usual life functions then it is abnormal. In the case of these kids, that would be to attend school and learn the skills one needs to live an independent life.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I appreciate virtually all conditions have a degrees of severity. However, most physical conditions have reasonably objective tests. E.g., lung function (spirometry) for COPD and asthma, biopsy for cancer, etc.

The problem I see with the diagnoses of mild forms of metal illnesses/conditions is the criteria used for them are often vague and subjective. These tests are probably fine for the more extreme cases, but I’d imagine their specificity drops off very rapidly as the deviations from the mean get smaller.....

You fail to recognize that the people who do make these diagnoses are better educated in the field than you are.

And lots of illnesses and conditions affect people on a continuum of severity. So what? You put all the pieces together and determine a treatment plan. It may be that Dr X medicates a tad more often than Dr Y. So what? Both run the risk of over or under medicating a small percentage of their patients.

I think your discomfort reflects a lack of understanding in how one arrives at a diagnosis and treatment plan. I am perfectly comfortable calling 10 mm of induration a positive TB skin test even though it is based on a bell curve and there will be some people with false positives and some with false negatives regardless of the cutoff point for the test. In a decade we may have a better test. (In case anyone cares, there is another test, but it's accuracy is no better.) That is just the way medicine is. You make the best decision using the best information you have at the time. So what? You will not see a perfect medical world in your lifetime. That is no reason to be uncomfortable with the system we have.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Soapy Sam: thanks for not getting bent out of shape. I was hoping that I didn't go too far in the hyperbole of my first sentence.

Gosh. Never worry over stuff like that.By posting opinions here we set ourselves up for argument. So long as it's relevant and polite argument, that's dandy. Takes a lot to tee me off. (Bamboo under the fingernails usually works).I was a bit worried myself I might have upset Boo, a lady I hold in high regard; but she never fights fair. She argues with facts.

I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, I'm saying that there is very likely less of what you describe than you think, and that autism is definitely not similar to those other conditions you mention.

I admitted I have no idea of the numbers, so you may well be right, though this probably varies from country to country.
On point two I agree 100% and hope I've made that plain: I can't help wondering how many other aspects of behaviour will turn out to have an organic / developmental timing, etc source. I'm something of a socio-Darwinist, so I expect most are. The human environment largely IS other humans and population density climbs relentlessly. The habitat we need to be best fitted to is human behaviour. (My working definition of morality is "Individual survival behaviour in a herd context".)

That's all well and good, but the trick is refining diagnoses so one doesn't get confused with the other. You'd agree that modern medical science is regularly working to improve diagnosis, yes?

Yes. And this is the critical aspect. If we define a "syndrome" by behavioural criteria alone we have a complexity problem. There are too many variables in behaviour. So we need objective tests- and it would be great if we could run a quck tricorder scan to tell whether a child's reading problem is due to slower than average neural development or because he just doesn't like reading- but we can't. (And even then we might legitimately ask- if his brain growth is "normal" for his age - WHY doesn't he like reading? Is that also a feature of his neural development? )
This way lieth madness...
I read Temple Grandin's book "Animals in Translation" a few months ago. (Highly reccommmended). Herself a high functioning autistic adult, she thinks all mammals are autistic and "normal" humans , with their greater integration of and filtering of sensory data within the conscious are the odd one out. If she's right, much of autism would be perfect fit to the human environment of only a few thousand years ago. It only becomes a problem because the environment has changed- there are now 6 (or 8) billion of us.

A feature that worries me somewhat is that if a reliable diagnostic test (cat scan / whatever) is available for a "social illness", we may increasingly refine our definition of such conditions- always based on the supposition that the people designing the test are the desired norm against which to measure.
(But that's material for several other threads).

...I've learned that diet and overall general health from a very young age plays a lot into the development of the brain and all its chemicals. As such, (lately) I've been coming to the conclusion that we've passed the point of the pendulum swing you mention there and that more and more people are becoming aware that it isn't just parenting, it isn't just medicating, it's that many kids are being deluged in environments where several factors may be turning what could be considered behavioral problems into actual medical conditions.The problem is that I don't think any person or agency is sure what the optimal balance is for avoiding this, nor do I think that balance is going to be the same for everyone.

I think we are on very near parallel tracks.

No, I don't think you conflated the two. At least, I didn't take what you said as doing so. You seemed to be clear in your distinction, I am just suggesting that perhaps our differences are more a matter of extremes rather than opposition.

More than likely. The problem with internet / text communication as opposed to sitting around a table is that attitudes come across as hard which are actually malleable.

I do somewhat disagree about the other things you mention, though. The reason I only somewhat disagree is because I think there are cases where genuine illness diagnoses are used to treat what would otherwise be a case where someone needs to change behavior and habits and medicine (or treatment, or operations) won't necessarily do that for them. I think that alcoholism might be one such case, where in some areas a diagnosis of alcoholism might be attributed to someone who simply needs to stop being such an irresponsible binge drinker. I would disagree that alcoholism isn't an actual condition, though, because there are definitely symptoms attributable to alcoholism that are very much the same as chemical addiction. Still, that's a whole other conversation and I'm not necessarily convinced that all people who are called alcoholics share those physical criteria that are attributable to an actual chemical addiction (but there are some who do).

I agree, but again I think I'd see the numbers very differently. The degree of actual physical addiction to alcohol seems much milder than with some other drugs. I never heard of anyone dying through being forced to stop drinking alcohol for instance.

Must get my backside off this chair and get on with WORK!

Cheers.

 

[Boo]

Soapy,

I did raise my eyebrow at your initial response to the OP but knowing you to be a reasonable man (for a Scot ) I knew all it would take was a baseball bat to the cranial storage compartment to clarify your impressions. The NIMH reports on Autism are a very hefty baseball bat, you should see the results when applied to school districts who try to offer less then the minimum services recommended to children with Autism.


I want to offer a couple of definitions and an analogy to help anyone who might grasp some of the concepts being discussed. A syndrome is generally defined as a condition with a specific list of symptoms or diagnostic criteria. If you have the required symptoms and meet the criteria you can be diagnosed with having a particular syndrome. A disease is a process with known physiological base. Someone is diagnosed with a disease when they can be shown to meet the criteria, usually a specific group of symptoms and defined results of various medical testing , i.e. blood work, x-ray, etc.

Some syndromes do have criteria or symptoms with physiological base, however when dealing with issues like Autism and other behavioral and developmental processes there isn't enough information to determine the nature of the physiological process involved. Therefore they cannot be tested for other then by observation for behaviors, delays in reaching developmental milestones, etc.


When it comes to Autism specifically one of the most common phrases you will hear within the community is that no two Autistic children are alike. Two children that meet all of the diagnostic criteria will not look, act or develop the same. One of the reasons for this that is just now coming to light in genetic research is that there are multiple genetic malfunctions that will produce what is defined as Autism. Unfortunately we have yet to reach the point where every child can be genetically tested to see which mutations are present and how they differ.

In regards to Autism and Aspergers; imagine two people diagnosed with skin cancer. One patient has a type of skin cancer that is generally self limiting and can be treated with good outcomes if caught early. This person will have a good prognosis and the effects of the cancer may not have a profound impact on their life but they still have cancer. The second individual has a another form that is considerably more involved and even if caught early has a poorer prognosis despite all the treatments available. They will always live under the shadow of this type of cancer and it's impact on their life will forever change the way they live.

Aspergers is comparable to the first type of cancer. The impact is less profound but the diagnosis is the same.


Finally, one other thing to remember is that Autism is not a static condition. People learn, grow, adapt and develop skills and this why children are evaluated thoroughly at least every three years. My youngest daughter was diagnosed at 15 months and was considered to be profoundly Autistic. She met every diagnostic criteria on the list, not just the minimum but all of them. She is now 9y/o and is in a regular classroom and receives therapy and extra services for delays in language (written and oral) and requires a few extra supports within the classroom. This fall is her triennial testing and we expect that she will diagnostically be moved up the spectrum from 'classic' Autism to Aspergers. That is what early therapy and intense interventions can accomplish in some children.




Boo

 

[Soapy Sam]

Soapy,

I did raise my eyebrow at your initial response to the OP but knowing you to be a reasonable man (for a Scot ) I knew all it would take was a baseball bat to the cranial storage compartment to clarify your impressions.

Just as well I never remove my Picklehaube when posting!

The NIMH reports on Autism are a very hefty baseball bat, you should see the results when applied to school districts who try to offer less then the minimum services recommended to children with Autism.

I wonder how the situation differs (if it does ) here? I aim to buy a copy of
R.R.Grinker's new book "Unstrange Minds" tomorrow. He seems to have investigated medico-social attitudes to autism in several places. The quote from his website re Korea is particularly interesting: In essence , S. Korea said they had very little autism, but studies using American diagnostic criteria showed similar figures to the US. Can it be that as societies industrialise and adapt to higher densities, we reformulate definitions of Behaviourally Defined Syndromes (BDS) by the very fact of redefining "the norm" in terms of the society doing the measuring?
If Temple Grandin's suspicions are right, autists may have been fitted extremely well into hunter / gatherer society and slightly less well into agrarian society, with the syndrome becoming problematical (and so defined as a behavioural syndrome) only in late stage, high population density industrial society.
ie-is autism seen as a problem simply because it no longer provides a best fit to the changed human environment (which is mostly other humans)
Or is there an actual environmental (habitat sense) factor at work causing an explosion in autism frequency? Grinker seems to plump for a purely "better diagnosis" explanation, but I want to read the book .

You know, I'm starting to think autism isn't a 1 in 150 phenomenon.
It looks more like 1 in 1, but with some people "growing through" it at different times and other only mildly affected. How much of "say" sociability is innate, how much learned? Is the problem not an innate lack of sociability, but an innate lack of a learning mechanism?

Am I completely blowing hot air ? Possibly. I find the topic fascinating, not having to live with the frustrating aspects, as you have.

When it comes to Autism specifically one of the most common phrases you will hear within the community is that no two Autistic children are alike.

In truth, no two children are alike, either in time or space. Sure there are average development rates, but even those are mostly defined behaviourally, I expect- and even that varies with place and time. There were two kids in my class (at age 7) who couldn't read. We were righteously shocked. I (and many of my contemporaries) could read when we went to school aged five- but that was in an age before TV, before computers, when parents (and aunts) saw teaching kids to read as a vital task. A friend, just retired after 30+ years teaching 5-6 year olds , tells a very different story now, which she thinks has nothing at all to do with neural development problems and everything to do with TV. The kids do superbly at operating vid / phone / ipod etc, but just don't want to read.
( I sometimes imagine a team of early bronze age psychologists devising tests to better understand why "today's teens" can't knap a flint axe. They have Monty Python Yorkshire accents). Society evolves. If it's evolving in a direction increasing numbers of people can't handle, maybe we need to rethink society ?

Two children that meet all of the diagnostic criteria will not look, act or develop the same. One of the reasons for this that is just now coming to light in genetic research is that there are multiple genetic malfunctions that will produce what is defined as Autism. Unfortunately we have yet to reach the point where every child can be genetically tested to see which mutations are present and how they differ.

This is the nub. ARE THEY malfunctions? Or are they perfectly "normal" gene combinations, widespread in the population. (6 billion divided by 150 is (gropes for calculator, finds long-lost floppy disc- dammit so that's where...*- a lot. These can't all have "malfunctioned" unless we're looking for something out of "Silent Spring" . (Is TV the new DDT?)
Are they malfunctions or are they just variations on the norm?
(nb, "Normal" is another of those "N-Words". I use it in the purely statistical sense.)

Finally, one other thing to remember is that Autism is not a static condition. People learn, grow, adapt and develop skills and this why children are evaluated thoroughly at least every three years. My youngest daughter was diagnosed at 15 months and was considered to be profoundly Autistic. She met every diagnostic criteria on the list, not just the minimum but all of them. She is now 9y/o and is in a regular classroom and receives therapy and extra services for delays in language (written and oral) and requires a few extra supports within the classroom. This fall is her triennial testing and we expect that she will diagnostically be moved up the spectrum from 'classic' Autism to Aspergers. That is what early therapy and intense interventions can accomplish in some children.

We can't experiment on people, though- and they ARE all different. How can we be sure, when we intervene in a developmental / timing condition, that the final outcome would not have been the same had we not intervened? I personally know only one person officially diagnosed as autistic- at age 6-7. She is now 14 , in high school, doing fine and so far as I can see a perfectly "normal" teenager (Self obsessed boy magnet pain in the butt in short, just as she should be. )
She really had very little special help though, (AFAIK), just coming through it on her own- couldn't read at 7, by ten read anything she could get her paws on. Just another point on that spectrum, as I increasingly suspect we all are.
Sorry. Rambling.
I'll just go and get this baseball bat off the spike on my Picklehaube...

 

[Delvo]

I read Temple Grandin's book "Animals in Translation" a few months ago. (Highly reccommmended). Herself a high functioning autistic adult, she thinks all mammals are autistic and "normal" humans , with their greater integration of and filtering of sensory data within the conscious, are the odd one out.

I don't get how that's supposed to work. One of the biggest classical signs of autism is not understanding body language and thus needing things explained in plain words that other people don't need explained (and possibly still not getting it). Animals have no language and rely almost entirely on body language to communicate and understand each other. That's the opposite of autism on at least one important symptom.

If she's right, much of autism would be perfect fit to the human environment of only a few thousand years ago.

At least 40 or 50, unless the genes for non-autism arose after the races had separated and thus would be much less common in some races than in others (unless multiple different mutations with similar phenotypic results arose independently in the same time frame in separate populations).

It only becomes a problem because the environment has changed- there are now 6 (or 8) billion of us.

Nobody sees that many per day, but many do see hundreds or thousands per day, most of which are strangers. However, many people today do still live in much smaller communities.

I never heard of anyone dying through being forced to stop drinking alcohol for instance.

It can happen, but would probably take a VERY high routine alcohol consumption rate. My brother's consumption rate has been higher than usual even for alcoholics, and he's been hospitalized multiple times with seizures and vomiting after trying to quit all at once, but I can't say whether any of those incidents would have killed him without the hospital's interference.

 

[RandFan]

This is probably the most comprehensive document on Autism Spectrum which includes Aspergers.

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/autism/complete-publication.shtml

Boo

Thank you. Good article.